Chris Combs

Chris Combs is a composer, arranger, steel guitarist, and producer from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

For its 21st album, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey reached into the dark annals of its hometown’s history and emerged with a masterwork: The Race Riot Suite.

Written, arranged and orchestrated by Chris Combs, the album is a long-form conceptual piece that tells the devastating story of the 1921 Tulsa race riot—a real estate-driven ethnocide occurring under the guise of citizen-dispensed justice.

The oil-elite, civic government and local press colluded to take advantage of a racially tense climate in Jim Crow-era Oklahoma, resulting in the death of hundreds of black Tulsans and the destruction of an entire city district.

"The adventurous jazz band's latest project pays tribute to Tulsa's Greenwood community, destroyed in a 1921 race riot, while evoking the creative output of 1920s Oklahoma…the score captures the energy of Greenwood's fervent churchgoers and the rollicking territory dance bands that crisscrossed the Southwest."

says the Los Angeles Times

Through propulsive rhythms and melodies, the album reflects an onlooker’s journey through the night that changed Tulsa’s landscape and nearly destroyed the country’s most thriving black community.

The music is at times nostalgic, bombastic, anguished and mournful, yet ultimately a celebration of the Greenwood community and its unflinching resiliency.

The Boston Globe says the Suite is "a beautifully orchestrated, melodically rich piece that celebrates Greenwood as much as it laments the wanton violence that destroyed the neighborhood”.

In addition to the permanent line-up of Combs (lap steel), Brian Haas (piano), Josh Raymer (drums) and Jeff Harshbarger (bass), the quartet enlisted the assistance of world class horn players Jeff Coffin (Béla Fleck, Dave Matthews Band), Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm), Peter Apfelbaum (Hieroglyphics, Don Cherry), Mark Southerland (Snuff Jazz) and Matt Leland (a founding JFJO member).

The project found Combs playing lap steel on rearrangements of Beethoven's 3rd & 6th symphonies alongside a 50 piece orchestra on June 12 as a headline performance at the OK Mozart Festival.

A feat never accomplished before on steel guitar.

Down Beat called Ludwig "a tour de force of jazz melded with classical."

He has been a part of the jazz group Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey since 2008 and has joined contemporary artists like George Porter Jr, Matt Chamberlain, Jeff Coffin, Steven Bernstein, Skerik, Johnny Vidacovich, and Mike Dillon on stage and in the studio.

In 2010, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey's reinterpretations of Beethoven's 3rd & 6th Symphonies premiered in June as a project entitled 'Ludwig'.

In January 2011 JFJO recorded a suite of music based on the Tulsa Race Riot.

The Race Riot Suite debuted live on May 20, 2011 with two sets performed by the album’s complete line-up (JFJO and guest horns) to a packed house at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center.

In Fall of 2012 The Race Riot Suite reached #1 on the CMJ Jazz chart.

The North American album release tour included two nights at the Jazz Standard in NYC, the Boom Boom Room in San Francisco, the University of California, San Diego, as well as a performances at Montreal Jazz Festival, High Sierra Music Festival, & the Bear Creek Music Festival.

Time Out New York says that “…the 12-part suite pinballs between majestic melodies, free improv and ragged New Orleans rhythms, sometimes all within the same song…expect a heavy dose of history, but an even heavier dose of forward-looking, down-home jazz.”

With influences like Charles Mingus, Madlib, George Harrison, James Blake, J Dilla, Radiohead, Marc Ribot, “Combsy” is a lush, groove-heavy album that was primarily tracked in October 2016.

The core tracks were recorded live as a trio to 2" tape at Fellowship Hall in Little Rock, AR with Aaron Boehler (bass) and Andrew Bones (drums, vibraphone). Horns were added at Marigny Studio in New Orleans, Combs added Brad Walker (tenor sax, Sturgill Simpson), Dan Oestreicher (bass and bari sax, Trombone Shorty), Carly Meyers (trombone, Roar)

Combs released a self-titled solo album in Oct 2017 debuting a new project called COMBSY.